1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to adjusting the resolution of an image, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for super-resolution enhancement processing to generate a high-resolution image from a low-resolution image.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, zooming and interpolation or filtering is used to change a low-resolution image obtained by remote capturing into a perceivable high-resolution image. In other words, interpolation is performed between low-resolution pixels or groups composed of a plurality of pixels to estimate high-resolution pixels or image data is filtered to improve high-frequency information of edges in an image. However, when interpolation is used, a high-resolution image can be generated, but high-frequency image data required to improve the sharpness of the image cannot be obtained. When filtering is used, the sharpness of the image can be improved, but the noise of the image increases, causing degradation in the visual quality of a high-resolution image.
Super-resolution enhancement processing is intended to generate a high-resolution image having finer details than a high-resolution image generated by interpolation such as bilinear interpolation or Bicubic interpolation or filtering. U.S. Pat. No. 6,766,067 and U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004-0218834 disclose techniques for super-resolution enhancement processing. U.S. Pat. No. 6,766,067 deals with high-resolution improvement processing for still images and U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004-0218834 deals with high-resolution improvement processing for moving images.